A Verizon spokesperson says the company is "still involved in evaluating bids. No one has been chosen yet. There is no signed contract." The site is just one of a number of company-owned sites in the area that Verizon has put on the market. The 42-story Penn/Garment area site was built in 1970.
In a company conference call earlier this month, Reckson president and CEO Scott Rechler acknowledged his firm was in the running for the 1.2 million-sf site. He said Reckson and a partner were still interested in the building, but he expected it to be a while before any deals were sealed. "It's competitive. We're participating in it."
A spokesperson for Trizec, which was also one of the finalists, tells GlobeSt.com, "We've been very interested in the building. We bid fairly aggressively on it; however but only within the limits of our disciplined approach to acquisitions." He says it would have been a nice complement to the company's other holdings here. "It fit with out current objective to increase holdings in New York, particularly in Midtown. The Chicago-based Trizec owns 1065 Ave. of the Americas, the Grace Building and the World Apparel Center.
This transaction would add more space to Equity Office's growing Midtown collection. The Chicago-based firm already owns seven other buildings--more than five million sf of space--in this submarket. Equity last purchase here was the 380,796-sf office component of 717 Fifth Ave. took for $160.5 million. The entire site sold for $353 million with a private retail investor group coming up with the rest to take the 84,000-sf ground floor retail space and fourth-floor office space.
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free ALM Digital Reader.
Once you are an ALM Digital Member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking commercial real estate news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical coverage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
*May exclude premium content© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
